[SeanTrek]

Okay, I recently reduced an admin who's a friend to a regular user, and he's really unhappy about it. I know I shouldn't have friends as admins, also, I have at least 10 times the computer knowledge he has. I don't know if I should make him an admin or not. Because here's what he said on the shoutbox before he was admin:

ADMIN ME! PLEASE!

1. You can't be admin if you can't put effort into typing properly
2. You also can't spam if you're an admin
3. He thinks admins can do whatever they want. He's wrong
4. He never contributed anything to BWE Network
5. He spammed more than twice and I told him not to

Okay, here's what he did right:
1. He deleted spam threads
Well, that's all he really did. As an Ex-Admin, I gave him Mod Forum access. Admin or not?

~Sean

[Brandon Sheley]

make him global mod, limit his permission to very basic non destructive.. if he wants to kill spam thread let him

that is, if you want to work with him again

a title can always been edited to make him look like admin to the reg users

at least in vBulletin

[SeanTrek]

Well, I have Fully Modded phpBB and it has a Mod CP with enough to destroy the forum, and access admin only forums!

So what I'd say is: Keep him a regular user. I've seen that done many times in vB, but I'm just keeping his title as "Ex-Admin"

And BWE Network is more of a site that has professional staff members, so what I'd say is that I'm not making him admin.

~Sean

[LarryB]

You do not make a person an admin on the basis of them being your friend. That is an impossible expectation for them to live up to when they don't meet the requirements of the task. As some know, Ryan and I were friends long before AF. In fact we worked on two forums before AF. He left the first forum and later I asked him to help me on the next forum I started. Even though we were friends and he was more than capable to do the job it was still difficult having him on staff being a friend at times because we had our own ideas of what we should be doing with the site and how it should be done. Being friends sometimes things weren't done because we didn't want to step on each other toes. At the same time, some times things were said not realizing the damage it would do to the other person because what is said between friends isn't always the same that you could say in the open on a forum. This is just again some of my mindless dribble. Hopefully some of it made sense for you.

[Christophaa]

Ah yes. The dreaded, "friend as an administrator" situation. If one of you're friends registers, you should not feel obligated to promote him/her to an administrator, or even a staff member, for that matter. Just because you've known a member personally for a long time doesn't mean that you have to make them feel, "special" on you're forum.

In short, if a friend of your's registers, and they tell you that they would like to become an administrator, kindly tell them that, if they really, really want to become a staff member, then they have to work for it, just as all of the other members do. It's as simple as that!

Chris

[Moelman]

There are a couple IRL friends on my forum and I don't think I would promote any of them to staff because of situations like this. It would be too hard to maintain a work/friend relationship. While possible if the friend of yours is mature enough sometimes it's not the best idea.

[Yellowrose]

I think to a point it depends on how you became friends in the first place and how close that friendship is.

Let me explain my story a little and you'll see what I mean.

I started out on a game fansite just as a member looking for game information. I discovered through this board how to make my own user content and shared it through the site with the other members and was asked to join the site's design team. Once on the design team for a while and being the helpfull type of person I am I was then asked to join staff as a moderator. Eventually I was also asked to join the admin team. I remained on the admin team and then because this site was on a network of game sites and the network was closing down one of the other admins and I had talked to the network owner and aquired the site we had been administrators of which in turn made us now co-owners. We did not know one another before thsi site and became friends through the site.

Through all of this a friendship materialized and became closer. Even though we have never met in person we do keep in touch by site PM, email and telephone.. Now I realize being co-owners is a little different then co-admins but the pricipal is still somewhat the same.

The old adage of 2 people not doing the same thing the same way still holds true in our situation with regards to the site. He does things I don't like and I do things he doesn't like and this was also the case when we were just admins. But.... we were able to talk it out and explain our reasons for what we had done. Once we understood each other it became easier to see why something was done.

It's the same with internet relationships with regards to a website as it is with relationships in real life. Communication and trust is of the utmost importance. If you are missing either one you are destined for problems.

Always keep communication lines open and see what others think before a final decision is made. If need be ask for other staff opinions. More opinions can sometimes lead to a different perspective and add to your original idea and expand on it.

You may not like soemthing that has been proposed but listen to the reasons behind the proposal and then ask "is this going to be beneficial". If the answer is even "could be" give it a chance and see what happens. It can always be discontinued if it doesn't work as originally thought or planned with no hard feelings between you. As long as the communication is there and it is discussed before implemented anything can be done within reason and in relation to the type of site you have.

[BamaStangGuy]

All my admins are close friends. Never had a problem with it.

[htmlmaster]

The only reasons my friends are admins on my forum is because they founded it with me. One of them hardly ever logs on these days, but is otherwise a more than capable admin. The other one is somewhat less capable, so much so that I haven't once seen him even edit a post other than his own, but he's highly active.

My bottom line: don't betray your forum's creators. If your friend had nothing to do with the forum's foundation, put a nice spin on it and come up with a little excuse why he shouldn't be an admin. The idea of making him a global mod isn't a bad idea either.

Remember, you don't want to anger your friends, A) they're your friends, and B) they can make valuable members.

[Stephie]

I think it is good to have a good relationship & good communication with him or her but if you have a good friendship outside the forum it may or may not be a good idea . I tried it myself & I found that it can do more harm than good. This is just my opinion. I feel you need to be able to demote them if they are not able to uphold your standards for your forum & in that case it could cause a problem in your friendship. Here is another topic on the same subject

Having Friends as moderators